Genius

I just finished reading a biography called "Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman" by James Gleick. Feynman was a physicist who worked with Bohr, Pauli and Einstein in the early days of quantum physics. He also worked at Los Alamos on the bomb during WWII and received a Nobel Prize for work in quantum electrodynamics.

Feynman developed quite a list of stories to tell, most of which I read in his collection of anecdotes, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". From cracking safes full of government secrets at Los Alamos to faking foreign languages (and succeeding!) to joining a samba school in Brazil to solving difficult integrals in his head, he did have an interesting life. However, if this were just a biography it would not have been worth reading. His life was rather sad, actually, spent as it was in promiscuous behavior and exaltation of atheistic ideals.

What I enjoyed most about the book was the discussion of particle physics at a popular level. I have always wanted to learn more about subatomic particles and this book definitely taught me some things I didn't know, as Feynman worked on these topics for years. He also discussed the superfluidity of liquid helium, and it was interesting to consider the behavior of such a fluid as it relates to quantum mechanics.

Feynman also had an unusual grasp of the physicality of quantum mechanics, often deriving classical results from quantum principles, which helped me understand the relationship between the two. I loved trying to wrap my mind around his idea of path integrals, summing the probabilities of all electron paths and integrating to find the actual result. Magnificent stuff!

And the best part was that I didn't have to work through equations to get the concepts - this is why I like popular science books. Though I loved calculus and diff in college, I never possessed the innate ability to see through an equation to its physical properties without a lot of concentrated thought. To Feynman it was second nature. And Gleick allowed me to understand Feynman's thoughts without thinking through the math.